Best Man
by Regina lacrimarum
Summary: Sometimes to keep a friendship alive, you have to let a relationship fall short of what it could be. Sirius only ever loved one girl. Rated T to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns anything you recognise. This is just a tribute of sorts.

_Italics indicate present day (i.e. Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts)._ Regular formatting indicates flashback. **Bold indicates Sirius' thoughts.**

I am not going to make any "serious/Sirius" puns, because they get old very quickly. If you are reading your first Marauders fic or are just easily amused, insert humorous little dialogs wherever the word "serious" is used. I will not put them in for you.

_Harry and Remus were holding Sirius back after an inappropriate remark concerning Sirius' sexual orientation. While Sirius Black had nothing against gays, he himself was not one, and like many red-blooded males would, he took offense. It didn't help that the incensing comment issued forth from the thin lips of the greasy Severus Snape, or that Sirius had been cooped up for months and was looking for an excuse to fight. _

_Snape sneered and made his way out the door, allowing himself a satisfied smirk when he was out of eyesight._

_When Sirius was sufficiently calmed to be released, Remus waved Harry away and sat across the table from his old friend. There was silence for a good quarter of an hour. Then Sirius said softly, "I hate him."_

_Remus didn't say, "Aren't we a little old to still be holding onto childish grudges?" He didn't say, "I'm sure the feeling is mutual." He didn't say any of the replies that sprang to mind, ranging from commiserative to gently chastising to harsh. He simply said, "I know."_

_Sirius ran a hand through his hair. "It's just…I really didn't need to hear that from him. I never told you why I never had any serious relationships after Hogwarts, did I?"_

_Remus shook his head. "We always thought it was odd, but we assumed you just weren't interested in settling down. You had plenty of one-night stands."_

_"Did I?"_

_"You said you did." _

_"Did I?"_

_Remus thought about it and it came to him with a start that Sirius had never said anything of the kind. He just showed up in the morning looking exhausted with a cheeky smile on his face and winked at them, making a comment full of innuendo. Because Sirius Black had been quite the ladies' man at Hogwarts, James always grinned, Lily pursed her lips, Peter looked envious, and Remus rolled his eyes. None of them pressed for details. James might have, but he was a married man, and if word ever got around to Lily that that sort of discussion was going on, he would have been a dead man walking. _

_"But… you… we all assumed… No, I don't suppose you ever did say so in so many words. So what you mean to say is that you never…?"_

_"No."_

_"Oh." Remus pondered this. "But why? I mean, there were plenty of women who would have had you."_

_"Not the one I wanted."_

_"Whom do you mean?"_

_Sirius sighed. "It started at Hogwarts…"_


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns anything you recognise. This is just a tribute of sorts.

_Italics indicate present day (i.e. Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts)._ Regular formatting indicates flashback. **Bold indicates Sirius' thoughts.**

Sixth Year

It was a dazzling winter day on the grounds of the wizarding school. The sky was a deep blue and four inches of snow lay on the ground like a glittering blanket. (_Sirius, of course, described the setting far less poetically and without much attention to detail, but Remus could imagine the scene perfectly, because he had spent many a happy morning traipsing through the grounds on similar days.)_ Since it was not long after breakfast, few students had tromped through this covering, and it was still fairly smooth.

Only four students were outside at the moment, and they would be in this state for only a very short while longer. They were heading back up to the castle, having only gone out for a moment to visit the groundskeeper, Hagrid, with whom they were well-acquainted.

The boy in the front of the group was tall and lean, with messy black hair and vivacious brown eyes. Beside him, panting heavily as he half-jogged to keep up with the former's lengthy strides, was a short, fat little boy principally known as Peter, Wormtail to his friends. He hadn't many of these. One was the boy, James Potter, to whom he was now addressing a tangential story that had begun with his description of the discovery that his treacle tart was slightly cold. His tale was now touching upon the beauty of a Ravenclaw named Greta, who had taken pity on hapless Peter Pettigrew and helped him with his Charms homework. She was in reality a very plain sort of girl with a touch more arrogance than suited her, but Wormtail's standards were low, and she was an angel in his eyes.

Behind them, another unlikely pair were smirking at each other as they watched James' futile attempts to extract himself from Wormtail's clutches. The duo's more striking member, a boy who was, no one could deny, stunningly handsome, was clinging to the other's arm, batting his long black eyelashes at his companion in mockery of the drama before them. Both were shaking with silent laughter.

The last of the quartet, who was tolerating with good grace the ignominy of being used as a prop in his friend's parody, was Remus Lupin. His face was more worn that any boy of sixteen's should be, but his blue eyes were warm as he watched his group.

The little clump made its way into the castle and headed for the Gryffindor tower, Sirius saluting Professor McGonagall, who was watching them suspiciously. Humming, they gave the password for their house and tumbled inside.

There were only two people still on the tower, the first being a round-faced blonde girl by the name of Alice Prewitt. The other was Evans. Oh, her first name? That doesn't matter. None of our heroes called her that. Except Remus, but he was a wimp. Well, if you must know, she was called Lily.

Evans looked up as the boys entered. Seeing who it was, she quickly returned to her book, pretending she hadn't seen them. This defense mechanism, commonly employed by that girl in the presence of these boys, was completely ineffectual. A delighted smile spread across James Potter's face when he saw her and he bounded over to her. "Evans!"

The object of his attentions was apparently deeply absorbed in her reading. He said her name louder, and, still receiving no reply, shouted it, practically in her ear. Evan's head snapped up. "What is it, _Potter_?" Her tone while enunciating the first three words was decidedly chilly; her voice on the last might have caused Hell to freeze over. James certainly seemed frozen, but that might have had more to do with the pulchritude of the bright green eyes boring into him with as much malice as ever exhibited by a basilisk, than with the basilisk's dulcet tones.

He managed not to drool, but it was a near thing. Only Sirius' elbow to his ribs saved him from unparalleled humiliation. James gave Evans a charming smile. "So, it's a Hogsmeade weekend." She looked at him disbelievingly and Sirius smacked himself on the head.** Thank you, Captain Obvious.**

Remus' elbow took over where Sirius' had left off, and James visibly winced. "Ow! Come to Hogsmeade with me, Evans." Alice, and the three remaining Marauders—as the boys were more commonly known—groaned in unison. Evans didn't take commands well, and the watchers could see her swelling up with indignation.

"Come to Hogwarts with you? With _you?_ Not bloody likely!" And Evans swept her books into her arms and stomped out the portrait hole, as she had many times before.

James wilted like a flower in a drought. Sirius smacked him. "You _idiot_. You know better than that. We've been over this a hundred times."

"I know, I know." James buried his face in his hands. "It's just… She's so… Look, I'll go after her, apologise, and then try again."

"NO," said his companions.

James, who was used to girls' falling all over him when he turned on the charm, was bewildered. His lack of success can be explained by two statements. A) James usually didn't behave around Lily the way he did around other girls, becuase he was not interested in them in the slightest and therefore didn't try too hard, the way he almost invariably did around Evans. B) On the rare occasions when James _did_ behave normally around Evans, his genuine personality (Read: "his genuine smugness") rubbed her the wrong way, so that she continued to hate him.

Alice tried to explain. "Lily… Lily isn't going to want to talk to you right now. You _know_ she hates it when you act, well, like yourself. She's going to want _someone_ to talk to, though."

"Where would she be?" Remus wondered. "I get along well with her, I could try."

"The library?" suggested Alice. "But I'm not sure it should be you who goes. She's going to want—"

"—a scapegoat," finished Sirius. "Someone she can yell at, vent to. That can't be you. She'd feel too bad about yelling at a friend. She needs to see someone she doesn't like." He had known who was going long before the idea had even occurred to the others as a possibility. Lily felt too sorry for Peter to sharpen her tongue on him, she was chummy with Remus and Alice and wouldn't be able to rationalize screaming herself hoarse at them, and the whole point was to keep James far away from her. That left only him.

He wasn't too happy about it, but it had to be done. As the others gaped at him, he waved goodbye and headed out of the common room. Remus called him back. "If we send you, Lily will yell a great deal and Madam Pince will have a fit and throw you both out. That will just make Lily angrier."

Sirius shrugged, very much the martyr. "Doesn't matter. It might be good to get her really steamed. Right now she's just annoyed."

No one said anything further to stop him. For one thing, it wouldn't work, and for another, he was talking sense, which was paralyzing by virtue of its peculiarity.

Sirius set out without revealing the real reason it wouldn't matter if Evans screamed at him. He wasn't heading to the library.

The cold hit him as he stepped out of the front door, nodding at a few of his housemates venturing out. He rubbed his hands together and started humming. He would have to be in top form when he went to talk to Evans, so he got himself into the right mood by imagining some of the wonderful pranks that the Marauders were planning.

He found her exactly where he had thought she would be, on the far side of the lake in a copse of trees a fair distance from the castle. Sitting on a rock surrounded by green, she looked like an angel with a halo of red hair. Lesser men than Sirius Black might have shrunk from their mission and stood watching her read, her usually stern face relaxed, rendering her delicate features breathtaking. It was probably a mercy that neither James nor Peter knew that Evans came out here, because from the moment of first sighting her, the poor boy would have been desperately in love. In James' case, even more so.

But Sirius Black was on a mission, and he had never been one to shirk the call of duty (Homework didn't count.). So instead of standing dead still and composing odes to the fair creature before him, he crept around in a half circle until he was right behind said beauty. He then snatched her book out of her hands. It was only then that he noticed that her arms were bare; her coat must have been left in the common room. He wished he could offer her his, but that might pacify her, so it would have to wait. Instead, he jumped back a few feet to avoid her retaliation, and, with the dexterity that came of long experience, held her book above his head with one hand and trapped her hands together in front of her with the other.

"Fancy meeting you here, Evans." She did not look amused. **Good, everything's going according to plan.**

"Give me my book, Black!"

Sirius shook his head and grinned fatuously at her. "Not gonna happen, Evans. Not unless I get a kiss." She brought her knee up sharply. He should have seen it coming, but even honed by Quidditch, his reflexes were a second too slow, and he fell to the ground, cursing, releasing both Lily and her textbook. She grabbed it and set about collecting her others, which had fallen to the ground when she had jumped up to regain possession of her charms book.

"God_dammit_, Evans," Sirius forced out. "Was that really necessary?"

"Absolutely." She glared at him. "What are you doing out here, Black?"

"I was just going for a walk, and then I just happened to catch sight of you through the trees and I thought, **Gee, wouldn't it be nice if that were Evans?** How wrong I was."

"Is that right?"

"That's right."

Evans snorted in a most unladylike fashion. "Pull the other one, Black. What did you want?"

"Alright, you caught me." He gave her a sheepish grin. "I came to talk to you about James."

Evans turned to walk away, but he rose and grabbed her wrist. "No, listen, Evans. Now, I like to think that I'm a fairly neutral third party in this disagreement—" Evans cackled "—and I don't want to sound critical, but you were very hard on poor James. He's a sensitive soul."

Evans was turning a glorious shade of purple. **Mission accomplished. Do I get a cookie?** He did not. All he received for his trouble was an earful.

"Now you just listen here, Sirius Black! JAMES POTTER IS A SENSITIVE SOUL THE WAY I'M A SLYTHERIN! And furthermore, _YOU_ ENCOURAGE HIS DISGUSTING DISPLAYS!" **Will the exclamation points of her unleashed capslocky rage never cease? **Sirius lamented as Evans continued. She ranted and raved, comparing James Potter to everything from a baboon to a horseradish (Don't ask.) and Sirius to a wide variety of invertebrates and amphibians. When she finally wound down, Sirius was sure he had gone deaf in his right ear.

"That's great, Evans, really wonderful to know we're appreciated." She glowered. "You look cold. Here." He slid his jacket off and held it out awkwardly. Was it just his imagination, or did her eyes soften for a fragment of a second? **Nah.** She snatched it from him and donned it without meeting his eyes again. **I guess since she didn't start screeching again, the danger is over. That's good. I don't think I could take much more of that.**

Lily didn't understand why she suddenly felt a lot calmer. Shouldn't my yelling at him and his not seeming to care have made me angrier? Since it was too cold to be introspective, she gave up her self-analysis and trailed Sirius into the castle, where she flung his jacket back at him and fled.

Lily didn't go back to the Gryffindor common room right away. She didn't want to explain her appearance; her face was cherry red from the cold and her hair had snow in it. The former could be explained away by the yelling at Sirius or by the climb to Gryffindor Tower, but she would just have to wait until the latter giveaway melted enough so as not to be noticeable. Besides, she wanted to think. Why did he come after me? He had to have known I wouldn't thank him for it. _And_ he took the trouble of coming all the way out there. Instead of the reaction which most girls would have exhibited at The Sirius Black's doing such a thing (i.e. gratefulness that he had done so and surety that he had come out there to comfort them), Lily jumped to a more reasonable conclusion. He must be suicidal. Either that or he really thought I was cruel to James. So, no matter which way you look at it… Idiot. Her longtime suspicions thus confirmed, Lily took her books to the library to finish her chapter before she headed to the common room.

Sirius also didn't wish to go back to the tower, for much the same reasons as Lily. He stood in the Entrance Hall, and the flood of students who, having bundled up after breakfast, were streaming outside, flowed in a wide arc on either side of him, knowing from long experience that one did not disturb a pensive Marauder (That is, James or Sirius. Remus was too firmly set, by popular understanding and his own personality, in his role as "the nice one" to scare people into respecting his personal space, and Peter was just a joke. Period.). That would draw his attention to one, and if he hadn't already been including one in the scheme he was sure to be plotting, he would find a way to adjust it so that it made one's life miserable. This wouldn't be out of any malice. It wasn't _personal_. It was just business. So. People were giving Sirius a wide berth. They needn't have bothered. He wouldn't have noticed had every person in the hall intentionally jostled him.

**Evans…** She was such a strange girl, such a shrew. **If it wouldn't upset James, I might go after her myself, just for the shock value. What sort of place in the hall of Hogwarts' greatest lovers** (In order to ensure that the reader is not too greatly disturbed, I assure him that no such hall is, or ever was, in existence.) **would I achieve if I could bag the prissiest prefect ever seen at Hogwarts? Hell, it might even be fun, she's not bad looking. **Sirius sighed regretfully. **Ah, well. That particular conquest will have to wait until James gets over his little crush. Hopefully it won't take too long, since I'll then still have to wait the appropriate month for propriety's sake.**

As the more astute reader may already have realized, Sirius didn't really give a damn about propriety. If he fed the gossip mill while he was in pursuit of pleasure, so much the better. He was basing this statement on what he knew from past experience to be the length of time after which James was no longer protective of his love interests. Every boy in Hogwarts was familiar with this time frame, which held true even in the rare cases when James had not actually dated the girl. A month it was, no less. Those who weren't told, and were in such a position relative to the girl concerned wherein they might need such information, were given a practical demonstration. Still others, more wretched by far, had discovered that if James didn't like the suitor or just thought the look of him fishy, the word "month" in the sentences above should be read "eternity."

The same guidelines went for Sirius, despite the fact that he went through a girl a month himself. With the unfortunates who broke the above rules, the Marauders really went to town. Dewey Serentino, who had courted Melanie Johnson in fourth year, still wouldn't drink pumpkin juice in the same room as the Marauders. Sirius hadn't even spoken to Melanie since second year, when their "romance" had consisted of hugs and kisses on the cheek.

Putting his plans for the taming of the shrew on hold, Sirius finally meandered back upstairs and ran into his (He hoped.) soon-to-be unsuspecting victim at the portrait hole. He bowed sardonically. She scowled in return and stomped off to the girls' dormitory, ignoring the questioning looks of the Alice and the Marauders sans James, who was hiding in the boys' dormitory, having been ordered to make himself scarce so that Lily would not see him on her return.

Sirius joined James. "She's in her dorm, you can come out now."

"Great. Did it work?"

"Like a charm."

"Also good to hear. Did Madam Pince throw you out of the library?"

Sirius' eyes lit up. "That reminds me, did you hear? Gertrude Herbing reckons she saw Pince snogging Filch!"

James was suitably disgusted, and Sirius congratulated himself on having evaded the question. He had stumbled on Evans' hiding place by accident when he had gone to fetch a particularly ill-thrown quaffle from a Quidditch practice, and he didn't think anyone else knew about it. He was _sure_ she wouldn't want Potter knowing about it. Since it wasn't useful in any way for him to tell James about it, he had decided to let her have her piece of serenity for the time being.

As to the rumor, which he had created on the spot solely to divert the topic, the falsehood was safe enough. Fourth-year motormouth and best Hogwarts source of gossip Gertrude Herbing circulated so many rumors that she would almost certainly be unable to recall whether or not she had indeed told such a story, and might even be persuaded by popular opinion to swear to having seen such a thing.

And so a disaster for Evans was averted, and the beast was calmed.

A/N: I should warn you that this story may be updated very slowly, since my other story, Shades of Grey, is longer and more complex and takes priority.


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